The Spill
Page 12
The past felt like something hidden behind a backlit curtain – I could see its silhouette but none of the details.
Samantha pushed my phone away.
‘Okay, so Meg was right and we were on our way to Kalgoorlie. But so what? That doesn’t prove a thing. Maybe she just wanted to visit Nanna and Poppa.’
‘We should talk to Dad,’ I said, but then, out of habit, immediately backed down and added, ‘If you think that’s a good idea, that is.’
‘Oh, yeah, I think it’s a great idea. Let’s barge in on Dad and make accusations based on nothing but something the Ghost Aunt made up.’
‘For one thing, I don’t think she made it up. Why would she do such a thing? In any case, we wouldn’t just “barge in and make accusations”. We would just talk to him. We would ask him what happened.’
Even as I said it, I tried to imagine how we could possibly bring up such a topic casually in conversation. Hey, Dad, can you please pass the salt and, while you’re at it, can you tell me whether you fucked around with Mum’s sister?
Samantha drained the rest of her coffee. ‘Let’s not be hasty. It’s been thirty-six years. We don’t have to go rushing in like bulls in a glass factory.’
‘I think it’s “bulls in a china shop”.’
‘Whatever. Either way, bulls have no business being there. In any case, we need to focus on other things, like sorting out Mum’s flat,’ Samantha continued. ‘I reckon we go through everything and divide it into things to keep, things to give to charity and things to chuck.’
‘I’ll start the sorting if you organise the skip,’ I said quickly. I could imagine Samantha emptying all of Mum’s life directly into the bin, given half a chance.
As she reached over to place her empty coffee cup on the table, I noticed a nasty bruise on her upper arm.
‘Where did you get that bruise?’ I asked.
Samantha looked at her arm, surprised. ‘I guess I must have knocked it against something. Clumsy me.’
Her answer reminded me of a similar conversation I’d had with Mum, just before we found out she was sick. While Mum had been brushing off a different problem altogether, I couldn’t help but think this bruise was hiding something too. It looked exactly the kind of bruise you might get from being grabbed very hard.
I hadn’t been inside Mum’s flat since she first went into hospital and I’d gone to pick up some of her belongings. Now, as it had then, it felt like a moment trapped in time: a cup of tea on the counter, this time with a healthy layer of mould growing on its surface; an open book lying facedown on the coffee table, waiting to be picked up again; an open copy of TV Week with programs that were never watched circled in red pen; an unfinished jigsaw puzzle on the dining table. I could feel the grief bubbling up into the base of my throat like percolating coffee but before it took me over completely I rolled up my sleeves and set to work.
The first thing I did was go into the kitchen and remove all the empty bottles and wine casks. I wanted to clear them away before Samantha arrived and made the face she usually made when presented with evidence of Mum’s drinking.
Then I cleared the fridge out. There was depressingly little in there, most of it in jars or open cans. The crisper held a single stick of celery which, judging from the half-empty carton of tomato juice and the almost-empty bottle of Tabasco sauce, had probably only been purchased as a garnish for a Bloody Mary.
I threw everything into a garbage bag and lugged it out to the bins. After the morning’s weirdness with Samantha, it felt good having something to distract me.
One of Mum’s neighbours, a small beige-coloured woman, was also taking out her rubbish.
‘You Tina’s girl?’
‘Yes, one of them.’
‘Sorry for your loss. It was our loss, too. All of us here in the flats. She was a good woman, your mum. Always willing to lend a hand. Always ready for a laugh.’
‘Thank you.’
I’d always hated this place and thought it a horrible place for Mum to live. But as I watched the beige-coloured lady scuttle away, I realised it had probably given Mum a stronger sense of family than Samantha and I had ever managed to.
Back in the flat, I decided to tackle the bedroom next. The bed was unmade, and the bottom sheet had come loose from the base, exposing the badly stained mattress. There was clothing on the floor, some of which was from when I had been frantically trying to find clean pyjamas for Mum to wear in hospital, and some from the last time Mum had got dressed in this room. I wondered if she had known that that day would be the last time she would ever dress herself.
I opened the built-in wardrobe and ran my hand along the dresses. Mum had always loved dresses, the brighter the better. I pulled out one of my favourites, a 1950s-style dress patterned with large red roses, and wished, not for the first time, that I’d been petite like my mother and Samantha so I could carry off dresses like that. I put the dress aside for Rosemary. Maybe she would like it.
As I worked my way through the wardrobe, I discovered a box in the corner full of Mum’s diaries. They were all the same type: a Collins slimline pocket diary, one week to view, black, with small gold lettering on the front page. There were about thirty of them. Mum was always carrying one around in her handbag when I was a child. I had sneaked a look at them a few times but had never found anything of interest.
I picked one up. 1986.
Each entry was like a haiku. A few dot points about the weather, appointments, what we ate for dinner, shopping lists.
Monday 20 January
Dentist 4 N
Rain.
Binbags, white socks, bra for S.
Dinner – toasted cheese sandwiches with pickle!
Saturday 29 March
S too much party. Stayed with C & DL.
32° but stormy.
Martinis without olives.
Thursday 22 May
S stayed for dinner. Pizza with middle still frozen.
24° cloudy sky, felt like rain but there was no rain.
Wanted rain.
Tuesday 9 December
Uncomfortable lunch with S & N.
S surly. Wouldn’t eat veg.
No rain. Pot plants on balcony dying.
I put the diary back and took the whole box out to my car. I didn’t want to risk Samantha dumping them all in the recycling, not when there might be something, some small seed of truth, somewhere in one of those slim little books.
Piece #9: 2015
It was muck-up day and all over the city, Year Twelve students were getting dressed up, drunk and sick. But when Trent had driven Rosemary to a champagne breakfast in Bedford that morning, Samantha hadn’t been worried at all. She knew Rosemary understood the dangers of alcohol – they’d talked about it many times over the years, particularly when she’d hit fifteen and all her friends had started drinking. Samantha would pick Rosemary up from parties with teenagers vomiting in the front garden and be relieved and grateful to find her daughter sober and smiling every single time. She’d come to believe that Rosemary had been spared the urge to drink that consumed both Tina and her. So when she got the call from the school, her heart broke a little.
The school nurse greeted her at the school office and took her around to a small room where Rosemary was sitting, dressed in a clown costume and holding a bucket. Her clown make-up had been badly smudged, resulting in something truly, yet unintentionally, horrifying. Slumped alongside her in the sick bay was a naughty nurse, a gorilla and a boy in a nun costume, all holding similar buckets.
Samantha greeted her daughter wordlessly, her lips pressed firmly together, then led her out to the car. They drove home in silence, the air in the car as thick and cloying as the smell of alcohol and vomit on Rosemary’s breath.
Samantha’s head was still fuzzy from her own vodka intake the night before. The vodka had been hidden in the super-sized slushy she’d bought from the 7-Eleven on her way home from work. Trent and Rosemary had teased her about the slushy but she’d
drunk it anyway.
At the first set of lights, she pulled a chewy mint out of her bag to clean away the bitter taste in her mouth.
Eventually, Rosemary had to break the silence.
‘Just say something, Mum!’ she said. ‘I know I’ve disappointed you, so can you please just go ahead and say it!’
Samantha was surprised by Rosemary’s tone. She was used to her being demanding, but this was a different kind of demand. It was a demand for love.
She swallowed the rest of her mint. ‘Yes, I’m disappointed,’ she said. ‘I’m sure your teachers are disappointed, too. Let’s just hope they’re willing to overlook this incident.’
As she spoke, she didn’t look at Rosemary. She was trying hard to keep any emotion out of her voice, but really, all she wanted was to shake her daughter and shout a lot. She remembered Tina’s face just before Tina slapped her, all those years ago, and she wondered if her own face looked like Tina’s had then.
‘I guess since it’s my last day, they can’t expel me,’ Rosemary attempted to joke, but then leant forward into the bucket she was still holding. After a few moments of heavy breathing and spitting, she leant back. ‘I feel terrible. Why do people even like alcohol when it makes you feel this bad?’
It was a fair question. Any feelings that drinking alleviated for Samantha only seemed to come back even stronger once the alcohol had worn off. And yet, she still drank. She wondered if Tina felt the same.
They drove in silence.
When the car stopped at the next lights, Rosemary grabbed Samantha’s arm. ‘Talk to me, Mum.’
‘Just concentrate on not being sick in the car, Rose,’ was all Samantha could muster.
‘But I want you to talk to me, Mum. Dad likes to talk but you don’t. You’re all buttoned up, like . . . like one of those Victorian ladies who never show their ankles, and I never ever know what you’re thinking. What are you thinking? I want to know what you’re thinking.’
‘I’m thinking that I need to get you home and let you sleep this off.’
‘I’m sorry I’m not perfect,’ Rosemary said, leaning forward and throwing up in the bucket.
‘None of us are,’ Samantha said, knowing Rosemary wouldn’t hear her over the sound of her retching.
The next morning, Rosemary, pale and sheepish, emerged briefly from her bedroom to get a glass of water.
‘How’s your head?’ Trent called out to her, as she disappeared back up the stairs.
‘Horrible,’ Rosemary called back.
Samantha waited until she heard the bedroom door close before she leant into Trent.
‘What do you think her punishment should be?’ she asked.
‘I think being sick and hungover is punishment enough,’ Trent replied.
‘But she needs to learn,’ Samantha said. ‘I really thought I’d taught her.’
‘Yes, well, we all enjoyed your twelve-part lecture series about the perils of alcohol,’ Trent remarked drily. ‘But the truth is that she’s eighteen now. You can’t really tell her what to do any more.’
It was then Samantha realised exactly what she needed to do.
‘I have an idea,’ she said, leaning even closer to Trent. ‘It’s Tina’s birthday this weekend and Nicole’s asked me to check in on her while she’s away because of that fall she had.’
Nicole had said Tina had been bruised pretty badly by the fall, which Samantha had no doubt was alcohol-related and probably happened all the time. She imagined Tina was like one of those toys that collapses and then springs up again when you press and release its base. But Nicole had sounded worried when she’d rung to ask Samantha the favour. She and Jethro had been about to fly in someone’s private jet to someone else’s private island off the coast of Queensland, just for dinner. So obviously she wasn’t that worried.
‘And?’ Trent wanted to know.
‘And it might be good for Rose to come with me to Tina’s house. To see.’
Trent didn’t need to ask what she thought Rosemary would see.
‘Do I have to come with you?’ Rosemary was lying on the couch next to Trent. It was the Sunday afternoon and she’d already forgotten she was still in the doghouse.
‘Yes, you do. She’s your grandmother and it’s her birthday,’ she told Rosemary with much more conviction than she felt.
‘It’s not like she really wants to see me. She doesn’t even know me,’ Rosemary moaned. ‘And Dad and I were about to watch Game of Thrones.’
‘It can wait until we come back, can’t it, Trent? We’ll only be gone for an hour.’
‘Sure, I can wait,’ Trent said. ‘Anyway, it’s about time you learnt that the true meaning of life is family obligation.’
‘Then why aren’t you coming?’ Rosemary said, poking him in the stomach.
‘Because, young lady, after almost twenty years of being married to your mother, your grandmother still can’t manage to get my name right. I’m not sure she and I really categorise each other as “family”.’
Samantha gave Trent a warning look.
‘It’s true,’ Trent muttered, under his breath, as he picked up the remote.
‘We’ll be back before you know it,’ Samantha said, holding out her hand to help Rosemary up from the couch.
‘I forgot Grammy Tina lived so close,’ Rosemary observed, as they pulled into Tina’s street. The drive had taken them less than five minutes. ‘I can’t remember the last time we came to visit her here. For ages, I thought she actually lived with Aunty Nic.’
‘They used to live together, but Aunty Nic moved out about twenty-five years ago. Tina has been alone ever since.’
‘Wow. Twenty-five years of living by herself. She must get lonely.’
‘I guess she sometimes does,’ Samantha said. ‘Anyway, we shouldn’t feel too sorry for her. She hasn’t exactly made good life choices.’
‘What do you mean?’
‘Well, she’s mostly put drinking before everything and everyone else,’ Samantha told her. ‘I haven’t told you this before, but your grandmother is an alcoholic.’
Rosemary looked completely underwhelmed by this big reveal. ‘Yeah, I kind of worked that out from all the things I’ve heard you and Dad say.’
Samantha was disappointed that her words hadn’t carried the weight she’d wanted, but she persisted. ‘Okay, so you knew. But it’s one thing knowing and another thing seeing.’
She reached into the back seat for the chocolates and flowers she’d bought from Coles, both heavily discounted. As she got out of the car, she braced herself for the reality of Tina’s birthday. The drinking before midday. The sagging couch and the broken blinds. The total loneliness.
She knew that Rosemary needed to see this. She needed to know what a life spent in the arms of alcohol looked like.
She also knew that she, herself, needed to be reminded.
As they walked up the stairs towards Tina’s flat, they heard music.
‘Someone’s having a party,’ Rosemary remarked. As they turned onto the first floor walkway, Samantha realised that it was Tina.
The door to her flat was wide open. Inside, there were about fifteen people squashed in, all laughing and drinking, like drunken sardines. An elderly guy wearing a bow tie was mixing cocktails in the kitchen.
‘Happy birthday to me!’ Tina exclaimed when she saw Samantha and Rosemary standing awkwardly at the door. She was dressed in a 1950s-style dress with big red roses and holding a martini glass. ‘Everyone, this is my daughter Samantha and my granddaughter Rosemary.’
Everyone cheered.
‘Would you like a drink?’ Tina asked them, but she was looking at Rosemary, who, in turn, was looking at the bartender with wide eyes.
‘No,’ Samantha said, a little too fiercely. ‘We just came to give you these.’
As she held out the flowers and the chocolates, she realised she hadn’t taken the discount stickers off them.
‘You shouldn’t have!’ Tina said, in a tone that suggested sh
e’d seen the stickers, too.
Someone turned the volume of the music up and a couple of people started to dance.
‘Who are all these people?’ Samantha shouted over the music. Tina ushered them back out to the walkway so they could hear each other.
‘Just the gang from the Admiral’s Tavern,’ Tina said. ‘When I told them Nicole was away and I was all alone on my birthday, they came over to throw me a party.’
Samantha felt a slight sting. She’d rung Tina to tell her that she would come by on her birthday, but she obviously didn’t count.
Now that Tina was standing outside, Samantha could see the huge, dark-purple bruises on her left arm that Nicole had told her about.
‘How did you do that?’
‘No idea,’ Tina replied brightly. ‘Clumsy me, I guess.’
‘Tina! We’re going to do the limbo,’ someone shouted from inside. ‘We’re using Thommo’s walking stick.’
‘Always so inventive,’ Tina remarked. ‘Do you want to play?’
Again, she was looking at Rosemary.
‘No,’ Samantha replied for the two of them. ‘We have to get back home.’
‘How’s Troy?’
‘Fine.’ She didn’t even bother to play her game and correct her.
‘Give him my love!’
Samantha and Rosemary watched her go back into the flat and effortlessly limbo under Thommo’s walking stick.
‘It would have actually been fun to stay,’ Rosemary said, as they got back into the car.
Samantha didn’t reply. As she pulled the car back out onto the street, she realised that maybe her real problem with Tina was not so much that she drank, but that she always made drinking look like so much fun.
Piece #10: 2018
The first Nicole knew of Tina’s illness was when the hospital rang.
‘Leave it,’ Jethro said. They’d only just sat down to dinner, but Nicole had a feeling she should answer it.